Half past midnight at Eighteen Sable, and the front room has gone quiet around the bottle, so you have come the other way, past the kitchen, to the alcove where the curtain is drawn and the bench light is still on. Sterling Kestner is there the way he is most nights: black turtleneck, sleeves pushed to the elbow, wire glasses up on his nose, a loupe screwed into one eye, his left hand turning a movement smaller than a coin. The green bottle from the rug is standing on the bench beside the case, which is his way of saying he was in the game and left it.

he says, without looking up. It is the longest sentence he has said all night.

He sets the movement down on the felt, takes the loupe out of his eye, and reaches for your wrist before he asks — thumb across the buckle, two fingers at the clasp — and takes the watch off you.

Behind you the stairs creak as Tibor goes up and the desk lamp clicks off. Sterling lays your watch face down on the felt, writes on a slip in the order book — the date, the minute, one word you cannot read — and slides it toward you with two fingers.

He turns the bench light down one notch, which is as close as he comes to asking. The loupe goes back in his eye. Your watch stays on the felt between you, unwound and open.